Automatic fire protection to buildings, their contents, and living creatures, has been almost entirely limited to the expensive overhead sprinkler method that is activated by intense heat generated by the fire. These systems are often subject to leakage, and freezing; and failure of the master control, power, and fluid supply. The heavy concentrations of smoke and heat from the fire, prior to sprinkler activation, is of a magnitude to cause severe damage to the building, contents, and death to life forms. Activation of the sprinklers may suppress or extinguish the fire but the structure and its contents are, inevitably, severely damaged, or destroyed by release of the fluid.
An object of this invention is to provide a simple, lightweight, small, low cost, long term reliable, life sustaining, non-destructive tested, low power, independent power source, apparatus to discharge all types of Fire Extinguishers-Class A, B, or C. The purpose is to suppress or extinguish fires upon detection of persistent traces of smoke, rather than waiting for extensive heat build-up, with resultant accumulations of heavy clouds of smoke.
A nominal 10 pound Major Force pressure with a 0.75 inch, minimum release level travel, is required to reliably activate a typical, hand operated, Fire Extinguisher. An arbitrary design criteria is established at 20 pounds Major Force pressure with 1.00 inches of travel. This criteria establishes wide tolerances to accommodate wide manufacturing deviations and shall discharge all Fire Extinguishers. A typical, hand held, Fire Extinguisher is discharge by removal of a Fire Extinguisher from the mounting Holder, removal of the safety pin, and exerting a squeezing pressure on the release lever by hand, in order to discharge a Fire Extinguisher. To retro-fit and use present Fire Extinguishers, this invention provides mounting Holders that requires the safety pin be removed before installation in the Holder, or else the bracket will not accommodate it, and a compressed spring, or other potential energy source, provides the necessary power and the thrust distance to a plunger or retractor, (when released by an electrical current activated shape-memory alloy trigger), to accomplish the discharge of the Fire Extinguisher.
Early experiments indicated that electro-magnetic solenoids lacked the necessary characteristics to reliably perform the operation of discharging Fire Extinguishers, even if mechanical advantage leverage were a part of the mechanism. The electromechanical solenoids are expensive, large, heavy, required too much power, and most of all, lacked sufficient, instantaneous, mechanical pulling power to release a Major Force mechanism to discharge a Fire Extinguisher. Electrical current activated shape-memory alloy trigger devices are the solution to the dilemma. They are cheap, can be manufactured in any configuration deemed desirable, are very small, are lightweight, reuseable thousands of times (for non-destructive testing), withstand great environmental variations, and require very low electrical power to activate.
Obviously, it is not desirable to activate the Fire Extinguishers for transitory, non-dangerous, conditions. If the electrical current activated shape-memory alloy trigger is Smoke Detector controlled, the Smoke Detector may be temporarily activated by such smoggy conditions as cigarette smoke, cigar smoke, kitchen-stove broiler smoke, and similar situations. These hazy conditions may quickly dissipate. A programmable delay is incorporated to defer the action of discharging the Fire Extinguisher. Only if the smoke condition persists does the electrical current activated shape-memory alloy trigger operate. If the smoggy situation diminishes, within the preset time limit, the trigger does not activate the Fire Extinguisher. Individual electrical current activated shape-memory alloy controlled Fire Extinguishers, (Class A, B, or C) may be strategically located and aimed to protect potentially, volatile, specific spots. The electrical current activated shape-memory alloy trigger devices may be deployed in legions as fire suppression/extinguishers to protect locales from the disastrous consequences of the activation of permanently installed, overhead sprinkler systems. Most importantly, electrical current activated shape-memory alloy triggered Liquified-Gas (such as Bromochlorodifluoromethane) type Fire Extinguishers may be destined to protect life forms and allow them time to escape from dangerous, smoke filled environments, before loss of life occurs, and long before overhead sprinkler systems are activated.